We have discussed the main characteristics of the ideal bodybuilder: broad shoulders, wide back, slim waist, narrow hips, legs with a ‘sweep,’ and broad calves.
Your muscle development should always be balanced throughout your entire body. It’s not desirable to overdevelop some muscles at the expense of others, or to undertrain some muscle groups while overtraining others. This leads to a phenomenon commonly seen in younger athletes: the upper body looks decent, but the legs appear underdeveloped. Below, we will discuss ways to train the calves using calf exercises.
Bar Body
This phenomenon is known as a ‘bar body,’ meaning you’ve only developed the muscles visible at the bar. Another name for this is the ‘human lightbulb’: large on top and tapering downward.
On the other hand, overdeveloping certain muscles enhances the appearance of your entire body. Broad shoulders give your body a more muscular appearance than if you only had a large chest with average shoulders above it.
The same applies to your back; when your back tapers from your shoulders to your waist, your upper body appears much more muscular.
A slim waist makes the top and bottom of your body appear much larger than they are. It all comes down to emphasizing your strengths and hiding your weaknesses.
We’ve covered shoulders, back, and waist; now onto the final part: legs with a ‘sweep’ and broad calves. If you’re wondering where the narrow hips went, unfortunately, that’s a genetically determined aspect that you cannot train.
Training the Thighs
Your thighs consist of two muscle groups: the quadriceps, or the front of your thighs, and the hamstrings, the back of your thighs. The quadriceps and hamstrings together determine the thickness of your thighs.
There’s much talk about the ‘sweep’ of the thighs in competitive bodybuilders. The sweep is the degree to which your quadriceps protrude outward, or in simpler terms, how developed your vastus lateralis is, creating an extra ‘bulge’ on the sides of your legs.
The development of the vastus lateralis, like all muscles, is largely genetically determined, resulting in some bodybuilders having a significant sweep while it’s hardly noticeable in others.
If you’re blessed with a responsive vastus lateralis, most leg exercises will provide sufficient stimulus for its growth. If you don’t have this advantage, you’ll need to target that muscle more specifically.
Although there aren’t exercises that isolate the vastus lateralis, you can emphasize the muscle by doing certain exercises, sometimes with a slight modification. Which exercises?
Firstly, there’s the Squat.
The squat is a foundational exercise that trains your entire legs, with an emphasis on the quadriceps. Your hamstrings and glutes aren’t directly trained, at least not targeted. They do assist throughout the movement, primarily to prevent you from collapsing under the weight. Hamstrings and glutes mainly function as stabilizers.
The quadriceps, if the exercise is performed correctly, bear the brunt of the tension. Squats work all muscles in the quadriceps (vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, and vastus intermedius), and you can’t escape that. However, you can emphasize a specific muscle in your quadriceps, just as you can target your upper chest by performing chest exercises on an incline bench. In the case of thigh muscles, you do this through foot positions.
When squatting with your feet shoulder-width apart, the normal stance for this exercise, you evenly train the quadriceps; all muscles receive roughly equal tension.
If you stand with your feet wider apart, toes slightly turned out for stability, the vastus medialis – on the inside of your thighs – is primarily targeted. Your knees should always move in the direction your toes are pointing.
If you stand with your feet closer together, within shoulder width, and keep your knees and toes pointing straight forward, the vastus lateralis bears the most load. However, ensure your body doesn’t become unstable due to standing with your feet too close together, as this can lead to serious injuries.
You can apply this same principle to other leg exercises.
When doing leg presses, you can safely experiment with foot positions without losing your balance.
Always consider the direction your knees are moving during the exercise; your toes should also point in that direction. Failing to do so could strain your knees in an awkward position and damage tendons.
Two exercises where you can really feel the vastus lateralis working are front squats and hack squats. The above instructions for foot positions also apply to these exercises. Many bodybuilders trying to improve their sweep use these two exercises.
The goal is, of course, to develop your leg muscles evenly, targeting both front and back to the fullest, but a broad sweep enhances the appearance of your legs.
Training the Calves
Many athletes hardly train their calves. It’s somewhat understandable: calf training is quite unpleasant and, if done correctly, very painful. Additionally, the calves are at the back of your body and at the bottom, so who sees them anyway?
Nevertheless, it’s important to develop your calves to the maximum extent, especially in bodybuilding. Large calves have an optically enlarging effect on your legs; if you have large, broad calves, your knee joints appear narrower, making your thighs look wider.
Bodybuilders with narrow joints, as Flex Wheeler did, have a significant advantage in the sport.
For our purposes, the calves consist of two major muscles: the gastrocnemius and the soleus. The gastrocnemius is the muscle that gives your calves the most mass. Beneath this muscle lies the soleus. You can see the soleus protrude slightly below your gastrocnemius, but otherwise, the gastrocnemius sits on top of the soleus. A well-developed soleus pushes the gastrocnemius upward, making it appear larger.
It’s important to train both muscles well to achieve the desired effect.
The gastrocnemius is primarily engaged in calf exercises where your legs are straight or nearly straight. The soleus comes into play when the legs are bent, as in all seated calf exercises.
Good exercises for the gastrocnemius are:
Standing calf raises
One-leg standing calf raises
Toe presses
The soleus is mainly trained with seated calf raises.
An exercise known for broadening the calf muscles is the donkey raise. However, the exaggerated stretch this exercise imposes on your calves likely contributes the most to its effect.
Regardless, it’s highly recommended!
The donkey raise isn’t difficult to perform, but you do need a partner (or a special machine). Here’s how to do it:
- Stand with the balls of your feet on an elevation, bend forward from your hips, and lean on a machine or bench
- Have your training partner sit on your lower back, as much above your buttocks as possible
- Lower your heels all the way down; this is the starting position
- Raise up onto the balls of your feet until you can’t go any higher and your calves are fully contracted
- Slowly return to the starting position and repeat
- Keep a slight bend in your knees throughout the movement
Incorporate donkey raises alongside other calf exercises, and you’ll see your calves thrive.
